Three Hours
by twelvewildkangaroos
Summary: Eight kids, four teams, three hours. (Templestuck AU, alpha and beta kids, cursing)


**heh heh heh templestuck is a pun because they are literally** _ **stuck in a temple**_ **. do you get it. i'm so funny. anyway yes story time.**

 _You have three hours. At the end of each hour, a gong will sound. When the gong sounds, you must return to the starting point. You will have five minutes to do this before the door closes. If you are outside when the door closes, the horrorterrors will get you. Are we clear?_

The voice echoed through the circular room. The eight teens all nodded and made sounds of assent.

"Mhm."

"Yeah."

"Sure."

 _Excellent. After the second gong, you have fifty-five minutes to reach the exit and escape. The exit will not open until the third hour. If any of you are still trapped inside when the third hour is up, you all die. If all of you escape, you win._

 _You will split up into four teams. Two teams may work together, no more than that._ _Divide yourselves up in any way, you have five minutes before you are allowed to begin._

Roxy coughed. Jane glanced over at her, then at Jake. But Jake had already gotten up and walked over to John, a buck-toothed boy. Jane turned back to Roxy and they both sat down.

Jade and Rose were already sitting together, Rose pretending to choke the green-eyed girl with her pink and purple scarf. That left two brothers.

"Hi," Dirk said. Dave stared at his twin brother. "Yo."

Then, a grinding filled the room. John jumped, dropping his glasses. They fell to the stone floor and cracked. John cursed, leaning down to pick the glasses up.

 _Ah, our first casualty._ The smooth voice could hardly be heard over the stone doors. Dave got up and peered out the opening, seeing nothing but a pathway leading to a wall.

"What the fuck are we supposed to do, run around blindly like rats?" he exclaimed. "Oh wait, we won't be alone. Instead of eight, there'll only be _four_ ominous bloodstains on the walls."

Roxy raised her hand. "Actually, there'll be the same amount of blood as if it were two people for me." Jake and John looked at each other, confused. Dirk walked over to his boyfriend and John and began explaining the menstruation cycle. Dave sighed.

Jade shook her head, staring out the openings in the walls. "No Roxy, it'll just be a bit more than normal," she said. "Only-" Dave quickly stood up, cutting Jade off.

"Alright, time to stop talking about bloody girl stuff. I'm sure there'll be time for that once we get out of this dump, but for now-"

 _Each team will leave through a different door. Try and find the exit, and remember- don't get lost._ The mysterious voice filled the room again, and torches illuminated on the walls. Eight of them.

Dave grabbed one and walked to one of the four huge doorways. The light barely illuminated the ceiling, as it was very high- definitely more than ten feet. "C'mon Dirk. We don't have all day, or all night, depending on what time it is."

The others began grabbing torches and standing by various doors. Dave plunged into the dark tunnel, listening to the receding shouts of the other teams. The only sound was his and Dirk's footsteps.

Dirk drew level with his twin brother. "What are we looking for?" Dave shrugged, practically unable to see anything but the flickering of the torch through his shades.

"I have no clue," the cooler twin (at least, in the mysterious voice's opinion) replied. "We're probably just running around in a maze like... like a mix of Indiana Jones and those weird kids from after the apocalypse."

Dirk rolled his eyes. "Which weird kids? There are a shitload of weird kids from the apocalypse." Dave groaned, his metaphor having sprung a leak and sank like DirkJake.

"Nevermind, ju-" Dave was cut short by the wall. Well, if you were being technical, he was already short, but- to steer away from this petty small humor, Dave bumped into the wall. His shades fell off his face and skittered into a corner. "Shit!" he muttered.

"Dave, wh-"

"I dropped my fucking glasses!" Dave blinked and stood up, his vision much improved. The black lenses had made the temple almost pitch-black, despite the faint light from the next roo-

Wait.

Dirk shone his torch in the corners, looking for Dave's shades. "Jesus fuck bro, why the fuck did you hit the wall?" Dave sighed and crouched down, running his fingers along the floor.

"They're tinted, okay? And- oh, found them," Dave grabbed the aviatiors and stared at them for a second. Then he shoved them in his pocket, standing. "There's a weird-ass light ahead. Like a fuckin vampire or something." Dirk nodded, slowly moving around the corner.

"Mhmmm... oh shit, there's something..." Dirk said. "It's like... a planet- but it's swirling? On some weird holder, like it's the almighty planet of the gods and it was placed upon the royal resting place." Dirk stepped out, into the room. Dave followed him, one hand holding up the torch and the other ready to punch something- or someone.

The shadeless teen stepped forward, about to touch the glowing sphere. Then he froze.

Colors swirled across the surface, green and blue and yellow and red and orange and purple. For a moment, it looked like Earth, then it looked like a galaxy, then it turned into the void- nearly black, a few shining spots of dark blue. Dave reached out to touch one of the blue spots, his index finger nearly on it. Then, as he touched it, the planet(?) disappeared.

 _Congratulations, Dave and Dirk. You've found the essence of_ _ **Space**_ _._ The voice filled the room, startling Dave and making him drop the torch. He cursed and picked it up before the fire caught one of the green, almost black vines crossing the floor on fire.

 _ **Space**_ _is one of the hardest to find. You've made it much easier for your coplayers. Now, there are only nine essences to find._ Dirk looked up sharply, and asked "Nine? What do you mean, essences?"

The voice slowly chuckled. _Ah, Dirk. The essences are basically the keys. There are twelve of them, and you have three hours- actually, two and a quarter now- to find them all. The assumption is that each team finds one per hour, or maybe more. As you already know, you just found_ _ **Space**_ _. The other ones that've been found are_ _ **Light**_ _and_ _ **Doom**_ _. And- wow! Roxy and Jane just found_ _ **Void**_ _!_

Dave frowned. "So you mean that there are only eight essences left? What are the other ones?"

 _Oh, that's easy. There's_ _ **Mind**_ _,_ _ **Hope**_ _,_ _ **Time**_ _,_ _ **Life**_ _,_ _ **Breath**_ _, and what else... hmm..._

It sounded like there was even an _eager_ undertone to the words, like the speaker was excited to explain. However, it was still that infuriatingly patient voice one would use to speak to a toddler.

 _The last three are_ _ **Heart**_ _,_ _ **Rage**_ _, and_ _ **Blood**_ _. However, they-_

Suddenly, a loud gong sounded. The voice immediately stopped, and then announced _You have five minutes to return to the starting point._ Dirk and Dave left the room, the latter of the two staring at the pedestal as they left.

Dirk had left charcoal smudges from the torch on the walls, shaped like arrows. Dave internally smacked himself- everyone but him had probably thought of doing some sort of Hansel and Gretel breadcrumb trail.

Dave, while caught in thought, hadn't noticed the doors ahead. Shouts brought him back to the current time. Dirk was running ahead, shouting at him to hurry. The doors were slowly inching together, and as Dirk slipped through Dave saw there was hardly enough room for two Dirks.

Dave ran faster.

The doors were closing quicker now, and Dave was sprinting. His torch flickered in the wind, and then suddenly he was at the door. He just barely managed to squeeze through, the doors slamming shut and crushing the torch he'd thrown behind him. A small burst of fire went up, and Dave collapsed, panting.

 _Excellent. I see you've all made it back in time, you'll be in here for five minutes. Congratulations to each team, for finding an essence. Now, you've got another two hours. I'll be seeing you then._

Dave coughed, adrenaline still running through his body. Then, he got up and sighed. How the _fuck_ were they going to make it through another two hours?

 **what a good question dave. here's another one: how did this one-shot turn into a multi-chapter story?**


End file.
